Long Trail Photographs
Collection Overview
The Long Trail Collection includes over 900 images of the oldest long-distance hiking trail in the United States: Vermont’s Long Trail. The collection is mainly comprised of black-and-white and hand-colored lantern slides derived from photographs taken between 1912 and 1937. It documents the Green Mountain Club’s building of original trails and shelters and illustrates the enthusiasm for the Long Trail project (and hiking in general) at the turn of the century. These images chronicle the views and landscapes seen by early hikers of the Long Trail and provide an historical record of people associated with the Green Mountain Club’s formative years.
The images in this collection were captured by Green Mountain Club members Theron S. Dean and Herbert Wheaton Congdon, both of whom were early contributors to the trail’s development. Congdon surveyed and mapped a large portion of the early trail including a fifty mile stretch from Middlebury Gap to Bolton. Congdon, along with Leroy Little and Clarence Cowles, is also credited with the first winter ascent of Mount Mansfield on February 21, 1920. Dean is perhaps the most prolific documenter of the Long Trail’s development. Dean travelled throughout Vermont presenting slideshows and giving talks about the Long Trail, often to hundreds of people.
A number of the original lantern slides in this collection were used by Congdon and Dean in their Long Trail presentations. Dean in particular meticulously cultivated his lantern slide collection and displayed these slides during his many talks. These lantern slides were originally digitized by the Landscape Change Program at the University of Vermont. The original slides can be viewed in the Dean and Congdon collections at the University of Vermont Special Collections in the Bailey Howe Library. More information about the Long Trail can be obtained from the Green Mountain Club.
The slides were scanned by UVM's Landscape Change Program with the generous support of the National Science Foundation. The digitized photographs also appear in the image database at http://www.uvm.edu/landscape/.
Published: March 09, 2010, University of Vermont, Bailey/Howe Library, Special Collections
Rights: Requests to reproduce this item should be sent to the UVM Libraries' Center for Digital Initiatives at cdi@uvm.edu. For more information, see http://cdi.uvm.edu/about/rights. More information.
Browse Options
Creator(s)
Place(s)
- Long Trail [33]
- Mount Mansfield [13]
- Camels Hump [3]
- Bingham Falls [1]
- Bourn Pond [1]
- Carmel Camp [1]
- Hell Hollow Brook [1]
- Lake of the Clouds [1]
- Middlebury Gap [1]
- Mount Carmel [1]
- North Pond [1]
- Pico Peak [1]
- Sherburne Pass [1]
- Smugglers Notch [1]
- Sterling Pond [1]
- Town of Bolton [1]
Format(s)
- image [33]
Genre(s)
- lantern slides [33]
- photographs [33]
- landscape photographs [4]
Topic(s)
- Hiking [33]
- Smith, Leverett [33]
- Congdon, Herbert Wheaton1876-1965 [8]
- Camping [4]
- Olney, Ward [3]
Browsing by:
Topic: ("Smith, Leverett")
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Bingham Falls - lower Smugglers' No... -
Captain Congdon and Leverett Smith ... -
Cave of the Winds on Mount Mansfiel... -
Chin of the Mount Mansfield Summit -
Congdon and Leverett Smith on Mount... -
Glen Ellen Lodge from the North -
Glen Ellen Lodge from the North -
Herbert Wheaton Congdon and Leveret... -
Lake of the Clouds from the Mount M... -
Leverett Smith and Herbert Wheaton ... -
Leverett Smith and porcupine at Dun... -
Leverett Smith at Big Rocks south o... -
Leverett Smith at North Pond -
Leverett Smith at a clearing on the... -
Leverett Smith at the lower end of ... -
Leverett Smith crossing a log bridg... -
Leverett Smith on a log bridge at t... -
Leverett Smith on an old lumber rai... -
Leverett Smith topping the first le... -
Leverett T. Smith and Herbert Wheat... -
Leverett T. Smith at Hell Brook -
Leverett T. Smith at the Needle's E... -
Leverett T. Smith at the Needle's E... -
Looking South from the second knoll... -
Mount Mansfield - summit of the nos...